29 Fyrva, 350BFD, 11 Ur
Meanwhile, in Cafe Svarte, Shevezz City
Yet another silence had come between them, and their chill-caf cups were long-empty. As he gave Vazkyr time to process what he had unloaded, he had also felt unburdened, but Kanda knew that, at least, he had precious little left to share. His brand lay on the table between them, with the tuft still sticking out of it, but there had been no need to discuss its identity.
The hubbub of daily Shevezzi life could be heard floating through the narrow window slots, interspersed with the occasional passing trader, the caws of birds or the growls of desert lizards being ushered back into Sablesand by the Shevezzi guards. Two small, black birds appeared at their window for a moment, before taking flight once more.
They're probably unimpressed that we don't have food to share, Kanda reasoned.
"Another chill-caf, Sair?" a table-server asked him, seeing how the other person at his table was staring out of the window.
"Yes please," Kanda nodded, "two."
Vazkyr murmured something, which he barely heard but just made out.
"Uhm, miss, double-strength please," he relayed.
"Strength of the chill or the caf?" she asked, "in case you're new here, please know we cannot offer both in one drink."
"Thank you," he acknowledged, "then double the caf, please."
The server nodded and returned to the bar area to relay the order, then proceeded to clean some tables, keeping one eye on the door to be aware of customers entering or leaving.
Chill-caf was the name of a Shevezzi speciality, known to people who travelled South, and one they also exported to establishments in Be'jaiber'ghas at a low enough price so that cafes and inns there could price match with those in Shevezz itself. The name was ironic, in that it was served hot and with a variety of local spices that triggered a sweat in the drinker. This then fuelled the body's own cooling mechanism, hence the name. Cafes were able to offer double-strength chill-caf, but nothing stronger, as the alchemists performed routine tests and set safe levels of each. Shevezz was unable to cultivate enough of the coffee plant to sustain a research and social culture, and relied on imports, both from the East and the Byantē Alliance over the Grànousii-an-Ormaszil Ocean to the West. The herbs, however, were grown some levels below ground, away from where the sun would burn them. The Alchemist's Guild, funded by the Treasury, decreed that too much caf had too great an impact on a person's heart rate and caused restlessness, whereas too much "chill" would require a disproportionate amount of water to replenish that which was sweated out. But establishments such as
Cafe Svarte could offer their customers double strength of either ingredient, allowing them to make a drink according to their tastes.
Some even offered "pure chill" which, by definition, meant "pure heat". It contained no caffeine, but was loaded with spices, so it was recommended to remain in the cool of the cafe for half an Ur after consumption to lower the risk of fainting once back in direct sunlight.
"Pure caf", double the strength with no herbs, was not the name of a drink, as the Shevezzi were averse to putting a new brand on an old idea, so coffee was offered in various forms, including snacks, so long as the strength per serving limit was adhered to.
A few moments later, the server returned and carefully placed a steaming glass mug in front of each of them, and Kanda slid some of his coin allowance across the table.
"Please keep the difference between the price and my coins," he said, forcing a smile.
With a gentle bow and a look of concern at Vazkyr, the server backed away then turned to speak to some new arrivals. The scent of chill-caf was comforting, and Kanda wrapped his hands around his mug, staring blankly into the mesmerising vapours.
He had hoped never again to have to relive his experiences in the Nectar Glen, or need to dredge up his own misdeeds, whether they were forgiven or not. But he could not escape the fact that he had been bribed to fight alongside Senzàn-Fai in his conquest of the central point of the Erdàn Savànii. He had used his skills to destroy the Aevyormii shield over An'béz'el and he had been the main perpetrator of the wounds inflicted on She of the Few. But it was also true that She had forgiven him and that he had made a vow to hold Senzàn-Fai to account. What he did hold back was his plan to take on Zykyrn Pilkarrz, as that was a future endeavour and not an immediate concern.
I have a lot of steps to take before I even dare approach their walls. The first of these is recovering my Elemental essence, and fortifying my weaknesses, he thought in frustration,
all the while things inside those same walls will carry on, with no knowing when they might spill out.
After some moments, Vazkyr sighed and turned back to him, taking a deep breath of her own brew.
"Well, that explains your sudden arrival I suppose," she accepted, "
hùlàn, what a mess."
Kanda gave no response to that.
A "mess" is an understatement, but I just about prevented it from getting messier.
Vazkyr looked up at him, expecting once again to see a different person, as she had just a couple of Urs previously, but he was not hiding anything from her now and just seemed deeply saddened. Whatever his role, he clearly regretted it. Making him feel worse would not achieve anything, let alone build a logical way forward.
"And you're sure that Naun'an'erd escaped with her life?" she asked.
"I am a terrible liar, so you would have been able to tell if I had been untruthful with you," he replied with almost mechanical monotony, "yes, when I last saw Her, She and the Fewer were alive and flying away from a lonely hilltop that had once been covered in Lunarblooms."
"Lunarblooms?" Vazkyr questioned, taking a gentle sip from her caf-cup.
"A delicate flower with the power to mend and heal. And I'm not talking about a medicinal drink," he explained.
"You said 'had once been covered'. How many were harvested to revive Naun?" she asked, aghast.
Kanda-Nor shrugged.
"All of them. Whether they needed all of them we will never know. But I don't blame the Aevyormii for stripping the hillside bare to save their leader. It has the bonus that Senzàn-Fai now has one less resource in his new territory."
"Shocking, as I've never heard of the plant and I'm fairly sure it's not cultivated below ground. Even one could have restored the population."
"That's hardly a priority right now," Kanda pointed out, "once the water situation is sorted, then you can have botanists investigate whether other populations exist elsewhere. If you get authorisation and funding, of course."
Vazkyr pulled out a small wad of paper from her robe pocket along with her quill-pen and jotted down some notes to remind herself later about the flowers.
"Back to the people then, wouldn't the Queen of the Aevyormii have given you a gift for saving her life?" Vazkyr pressed, "while it is customary to acknowledge deeds done by a stranger, I'm not exactly an Aevyormii sociologist."
Kanda sighed, reached over his caf-cup and carefully retrieved his brand.
"She did," he confirmed, "as she was departing - and either knowingly or unknowingly leaving me a trail to follow - she dropped this into my lap. I suspect you've noticed it already."
He gently twisted a connector, retrieved the feather and placed it between him and Vazkyr in the place of the brand.
So I was right, Vazkyr thought, taking in an audible breath,
but I was also correct not to press the interrogation earlier too.
"I cried myself to sleep after that and woke up later, very cold," Kanda recalled.
As he studied the gift, he realised that it was not pure white, as he had presumed. Once the Lunarblooms and the Aevyormii had departed that hill, the feather had seemed to radiate light into the blackened night sky. Now, here in natural sunlight, it appeared a pale grey instead. The blue tip, a stain that would never leave the feather, nor his conscience, almost sparkled with the sun's rays that squeezed their way through the small window, a splash depicting both death and life in equal measure.
"This is definitely an Elder's feather," Vazkyr confirmed, "as you'll know, most of the Aevyormii are white. Only old, particularly wise or Elder Wing-folk have grey feathers, ‘Elder' meaning a position of leadership not just their age," she clarified, "there is one other characteristic, which you may not be aware of though; white-feathered Aevyormii lose their feathers from fear, panic or the occasional illness. But aside from extreme illness, an Elder Aevyorm only sheds them by choice. We don't fully understand, but it seems their plumes are tougher, at least at root-level."
"Thanks for explaining that, it helps me to know for sure that my hope was placed in Her choice, not happenstance."
Vazkyr nodded, "do you mind if I check it for readings?"
Kanda frowned and watched her retrieve a small disk from her pocket. The disk itself was contained in a glass case which was attached to a smooth, square metallic base with four tiny legs.
"Readings?"
"I won't touch the feather, I promise. I now know you're telling the truth - both the before and after-battle. So I agree it is yours," she stated as though giving a presentation, "this is a flow-compass. We use it to detect readings of energies - of the non-mystical variety should you wonder. Well, I say "we" but there aren't many of this in circulation at the moment. So, anything that falls from a living being should, all things being equal, which I know they're not, but we have to presume a little bit on that score…"
"Anything falls from a living being should…?" Kanda interjected, trying to keep her on-track.
"Thanks. Did I say I get easily distracted? Stop it, Vazkyr," she scolded herself, "they should have latent heat energy and, in the case of the Aevyormii either latent water or wind energy, too. But the heat is the easiest one to catch and that's mostly what my version of the flow-compass does."
She unhinged the flow-compass' legs so it could lay flat on the table, then carefully positioned it a tiny fraction away from the quill-tip. The diamond-shaped indicator spun a couple of times, until it finally slowed and came to a stop. Kanda could tell Vazkyr was nervous, so he resisted the urge to look first. When she had taken in its reading, she took a swig of the chill-caf and sat back in her chair, clearly relieved by what she saw.
by FJ Brodie
"Oh, thank goodness. And…although they probably had Her well-tended, thank you for going back to put things right too."
Kanda now looked into the glass and saw the red tip of the indicator a third into a red zone, with the other tip sitting directly on the line between a blue and a grey one. He dared not ask what the black zones meant, knowing that, in symbology, black rarely equated to ‘good news'. He carefully re-slotted the feather back into his brand, and noticed a slight increase in the silver's temperature. Putting it down to the rising Shevezzi heat, he clipped the brand onto his belt.
"That tool's a little fancy for an entrance clerk," he pointed out, "but I won't push you about that ‘other job' of yours, either."
Much as I might like to.
"Ha, this isn't for either job, it's just a hobby. Quite an expensive one, truth be told. I said I liked to try out the latest gadgets, didn't I? Well they don't exactly come free, even for testing purposes, you know? Can't waste the funds or the materials, so we have to either give it back after a time, or pay the cost, so I pay the cost and go tinkering. I can't return something once I've seen it, even if it doesn't work properly, it'll do something I couldn't do before. I like fire, you see, not in the sense of making things go boom or anything but, I don't know, it purifies, cleanses and is only contained with sustained focus."
"Sustained focus?" Kanda grinned, relieved that the tension between them was finally easing, even if it did result in overshare and torrents of words on the part of Vazkyr.
"Well, I never said I was the one focusing, did I?," she dramatically sighed, rolling her eyes, "sorry I went all wordy."
"No apology needed, I believe it's just a stress-relief reaction. Maybe not the distraction but, well, letting it flow in buckets rather than goblets."
"What have buckets got to do with it?" Vazkyr asked, confused.
"Never mind, I forgot that you don't exactly have water flowing in a way for that saying to work. Don't worry about being wordy, Vazkyr," he nodded, making a mental note to try and figure out what other sayings from his home of ice and snow would no longer be appropriate in a realm of sand and rock.
Vazkyr sat forward again with a tired, but grateful expression on her face, and held her chill-caf close to her face. As she did so, the pressure in her head began to recede, allowing her to think more clearly. She glanced around the cafe furtively then, deciding it was safe, put her drink to one side and cupped her hands around Kanda's, looking him in the eyes.
"What I am about to tell you remains between us and the person I am about to mention, are we clear?"
Taken aback by how the determined, almost aggressive clerk had reached out with such soft hands, yet knowing it was for professional reasons, Kanda nodded, keeping his eyes on her.
"You will tell
the person before they find out, yes?"
Seeing his reasoning, Vazkyr nodded.
"Absolutely. Here goes. Findat," she whispered, her serious tone and demeanour returning, "is on his way to the Nectar Glen, with a team of some sort or other, to check the Aevyormii's status as we speak. You and I now both know what they will find. It is a shock they will have to bear, as it is too late for us to intercept him. I have two questions. The first is this: will his group be safe?"
Kanda thought about that for a few moments and considered how volatile Senzàn-Fai had been.
"You haven't seen Findat since yesterday. Are you sure they will have set out?" he asked, "I'm not avoiding the question, before you ask."
"He promised to take on my task. The only logical progression from the information I received yesterday was to investigate the Nectar Glen. But he is, as I'm sure you've been made aware, an Overseer. So, he will have had to get authorisation to head out - authorisation he will have received. What conditions, requirements, tasks and whatnot he has to undertake, or methods to achieve his goals, I don't know. I don't need to know. But I could not think of a more rational course of action than to go there. So, I'm confident that they are on the way."
"You're the Shevezzi, well, imported Shevezzi, anyway," Kanda winked, furtively, "as logical as the native locals, yet somehow sensitive enough to others' well-being."
"How'd'you know I was imported? Excuse the rolled-up words, by the by," Vazkyr asked.
"'
Hùlàn' is not Shevezzi," Kanda pointed out, "and rolled-up words are more of an Elelupii trait - a
native Elelupii trait. Clearly, you are not a halfling, but you've had more time with them than the occasional chit-chat."
"
Hmf, I'm called out. But at least
I don't hide the fact I'm an import. And now, you're distracting me. I'm good enough at that myself, thank you very much!" she retorted.
Kanda shook his head.
"Findat's team should be safe," he quietly affirmed, "they are not there to take back his precious territory, the Aevyormii don't know they are on the way, let alone be the senders of the task-force. Qal'ath's so-called king will need diplomatic and trade relations with other realms as his army is much too small to conquer much else for a while. The King has good people around him - which partially makes up for his deficits. I suspect Findat will be fine, so long as his group does not incite aggression."
"Good to know," Vazkyr affirmed, "second question, will we be able to negotiate access to water?"
"Hmm, 'access to water' sounds too close to 'trespassing' on the land they have claimed, I believe. However, again, they will need to trade. The risk is for Shevezz however, because the Queendom
needs water. If your team does not sound desperate, they might find reasonable terms, at least if the King is not doing all the negotiating. He shouldn't, if he listens to his advisors anyway," Kanda elaborated, with a shake of his head, "but if Findat gives away any sense of urgency, Shevezz will be left with sourcing her own water from further away, or paying a hefty price for the privilege."
Vazkyr slightly nodded, and pressed her hands slightly firmer around his.
"Alright," she said with a smile, and at her regular volume, "I am satisfied. Both my feelings on the matter and on your role before your arrival here. So, are you Kanda, or Kandrà?" she smirked.
"In a city where nearly everyone has more than one name, or goes by their title, or their family name, does it matter?" he asked, "from what I've heard of the Shevezzi accent so far,
Kanda is much easier to say. So, I'll be sticking with that."
"Okay then," Vazkyr begrudgingly accepted, "down your chill-caf and I'll take you to that light crystal recharging facility I mentioned."
"I would down it, but I can't lift my mug without spilling it on both of us," Kanda replied with a smile, looking down at the glass mug they were effectively both holding.
"Oh, yes, that," she realised, quickly removing her hands from around his and glancing away as she gulped down what she had thought was a small remaining sip of her chill-caf. After coughing and spluttering, then wiping her head on her sleeve she was glad her dark skin hid her embarrassment. After a nervous laugh, she glanced back at Kanda who, being much lighter-skinned, could not hide the effect of a gulp of a double-strength chill-caf.
"We'd - we'd best wait a few moments … before heading into the... the heat," he wheezed.
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